Horde Pandaria Introduction Updated
The latest patch brought some new models and actual sound into the introduction, but it doesn't look complete just yet. After you complete the introduction, you can return to Pandaria with a portal in the Pandaren area of Orgrimmar. The Alliance introduction is still a placeholder.

Pandaren Cutscene Added
The new character cutscene for Pandaren is now in game.

More Details on Mists of Pandaria Opening Cinematic World Premiere

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Don’t miss the world premiere of the World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria opening cinematic at gamescom 2012! The latest creation from Blizzard’s cinematics team will be shown in both English and German on giant screens at our booth in Halle 6.1 (B21).

The opening cinematic will debut at 14:00 on Thursday, August 16, the first fully public day of gamescom. This much-anticipated unveiling will be accompanied by a performance from MANAO - Drums of China – the all-female Chinese drumming group that opened and closed the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. A signing session with Blizzard developers will immediately follow the premiere.

Remember that from August 15-19, our booth will also be showcasing World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm, and Diablo III, as well as our famous dance and costume contests, and many other activities.

Visit our Activities page for details, and be sure to check back here soon for more on what we have in store for you at gamescom!

Beta Class Balance Analysis

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Death Knight (Forums)269s of combat, ghoul cast 69 claws. At 40 energy per, that's 2760 total spent. figuring 10 regen per second, the expected number of claws in that time span with 0 haste scaling on Energy is 69.75. So i'd say the ghoul is not currently getting energy regen from haste. Is this intended?
In the current build you have, the Ghoul’s energy regen was indeed not benefitting from your haste. That’s fixed for the next build. This also applies to the Army of the Dead ghouls.

Also, reaping is not currently functioning as you described. DDDDUU when used on 4 blood boils becomes dbdfUU.
That fix didn’t make it into the build you currently have. It should be in the next build.

As I have said before, we're not yet in the stage of development where everyone makes sure all of their changes are in before we pull a build -- that would just require too much needless coordination and make it harder to get builds out. We tend to just pull builds -- for now -- and get what we get.

Paladin (Forums)Is it intended that Sacred Shield not scale with haste while the other options on the tier do? It behaves (more or less) like a proactive HoT, so it'd make sense.
That's an easy fix.

Well, not really about ret, but prot, but does proof that Shield of the Righteous falling behind Judgement and Holy Wrath (against single targets) count? It almost feels like Glyph of the Alabaster Shield is going to be mandatory.
Well, you didn't exactly provide proof, but Judgment in particular does hit really hard for Prot, especially with Vengeance stacked. You have a lot of motivation to use SotR though, so I don't expect it will drop out of the rotation. If paladin damage was low compared to other tanks, that would be a problem (and SotR a potential place to buff it), but we're not seeing that.

(Editorial note: we removed several posts debating the merits of various tanks. Again, perfectly legit topic, but we have a whole forum for those discussions. This thread is about numbers and rotations.)

Warlock (Forums)Maybe you don't have to actually debug the simulations, but take a look at this comment made by the warlock developer of simcraft.... Maybe you guys could just take a look at the actions lists for all 3 specs that he uses and see if maybe something could be learned from there:
One point of confusion seems to be about refreshing Corruption in Metamorphosis. There may currently be some bugs with that. The intended functionality (which we will double check) is that Touch of Chaos and Void Ray both extend Corruption by 6 sec, up to a maximum of 18 sec, and both cause the damage to be recomputed. We’re trying to evaluate further what differences there may be between our results and yours. Again, actual logs (e.g. World of Logs) would help us compare the most easily.

Blue Posts

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

PTR Build Number
The initial PTR build is identifying itself as version 5.0.3. That will increment up to 5.0.4 soon. As a result, we're referring to it as 5.0.4. We apologize for any confusion. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

25 Man Raid Testing
25-player testing will follow as soon as 10-player Heroic testing has concluded. Since there are no level 90 templates, we wanted to make sure everyone who was interested in raid testing had time to level to 90 before beginning 25-player testing. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Cross-Realm Zones and Pet Battles on the PTR
Cross-realm should be enabled, pet battles are disabled on the PTR. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Pet Combat Log
We are in the process of moving the pet combat logging to its own, separate tab. Hopefully on the next build but no promises. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Some Non-Capture Pets Becoming Rare QualityThe list is missing the other Vanilla Collector's Edition Pets: Mini Diablo and Zergling
Whoops! This has been corrected. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Arena Pass 2012 Rewards - Mount/Title been given yet?Finally, received my pet!
Indeed, it seems the pets and titles that were not initially sent are now being received. If you have not seen yours yet, then keep an eye on your mailbox as it should not be too long now. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Would You Accept Homogenization for Balance and Fun?Would you prefer if every class was completely unique, but it often meant that some classes would be bottom of proverbial pile, imbalances were rife, things would polarise quite often (1 classes goes from best to worst) each patch and so on.
This extreme offers the most diverse play style, letting a player choose the class they enjoy and you can look at your character and say “That is class X”, which is pretty awesome being able to distinguish yourself like that. This can sometimes also create points where your class may sadly feel either too strong or weak which is something that is not enjoyed.

Classes were very very similar, with only a few distinctive abilities/signature abilities which separated each class from another, but the game was a lot more balanced, you could play the class you enjoyed and not have to worry about suddenly becoming much worse than any other class.
This offers you a less distinct play style with the class you are playing. While you may feel all of the classes are in good balance, which would be great, you would end up looking at two classes of the same role and think to yourself, “Well, what’s the difference?” This does not really feel like something that offers an enjoyable experience.

I can understand why for your discussion you have decided to choose these two extremes, so you can find where the opinions of everyone lie. But from this thread it can be seen that nice balance with the ability to distinguish your class is what most of you would like to see, why not swing the discussion more in this direction?

We hope that you keep up the constructive discussion and look forward to anything else you have to say. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

PvP vs Ganking
Some great thoughts here. On the topic of ganking though, it's a tough one to handle. Many players join a PvP server so that they can seek out and inflict revenge on members of the opposite faction. You see players wishing for more world PvP like the old Southshore/Tarren Mill conflicts, and maybe some of the things you suggest would harm those kind of battles.

I'll play devil's advocate here (in my PvP server days I was always the victim rather than the ganker).

If buffs are sustained through death, that takes away some of the challenge of finding the person very quickly once they ress. Mind you, buffs can often be applied very quickly.

A debuff to prevent you from killing someone multiple times is a bit of a party pooper, and could potentially be abused — you'd have a hostile that was invulnerable for a limited time.

I think any PvP-kills-only debuffs/changes to timers could potentially add confusing layers of complexity to the game. Also, 'PvP-kills-only' could be possibly be avoided by waiting until a mob was attacking the gankee, then allowing the mob to get the killing blow.

You'd also have to make sure all these buffs/timers didn't apply to PvP zones like Wintergrasp and battlegrounds, and that players can't enter the zones with anything like that active.

Didn't they also have dishonourable kills in those days?
Yes but I don't think it did a great job to discourage those who wanted to do it deliberately. You could also get a dishonourable kill by being in a group with someone who killed a lowbie, this happened to me when I was outside an instance with a group once, I was heartbroken.

Yes it is a real challange waiting for them to res and kill them again with such a low health level and being so low levelled they don't even hit you when they try.
Depends on the difference in levels. Obviously if someone is a lot lower than you then yeah, the 'challenge' argument doesn't apply.

Or they could be made worth no honour if killed in a short time like when you HS. Possibly even the unthinkable bring back diminishing returns on honour.
True, although it only helps if people are actually ganking for honor or just for the fun of finding enemies to kill. I suspect a large portion of people do it for the latter reason, seeing as BGs are a much better source of honor points.

Well given that you can already turn off certain thing in Arena and BGs, even making things only work in a certain way, and have this ability for a while, surely it can be done to this too.
Yeah sure, I was only mentioning it to point out that it wouldn't be that straight-forward to implement, and we always have to weigh up the urgency of changes like this against other things that demand developer time.

Use the PvE-Server-Mechanic
As Oldtrafford pointed out, the whole point is that it's a PvP server. The rules and mechanics should be different when it comes to PvP. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Content Consumption Speed and DifficultyI'm not a hardcore player, nor do I find myself skilled. But rewarding those that put much less time and effort into something with the same rewards as a more dedicated player, is utterly demotivating.
Alright, let's put this in a different perspective to see if you (and other players) keep up with this argument about less time and effort being equally rewarded...

*This is a fictional example*
Let's imagine that developers decided that, from now on, every Heroic boss of an expansion is only available until one guild, just one guild in the world, defeats it. The moment that happens, the Heroic mode of that boss is unavailable for everyone else until the next expansion is released.

In your own reasoning, it's only fair; they're putting way more time and effort than everyone else (hence why they'd be killing it first in the world). I'm sure there'll be people out there that would scream "That is awesome!" at the idea of something like that.

In reality, what would happen, is that after 4-5-whatever amount of bosses they'd probably stop trying after realizing they just can't compete with that guild.

Would you be happy, in that context, with having to come one expansion later to kill those bosses when they're no longer relevant to your character? The answer is most likely: no.

However, that's exactly what has been suggested in this thread for those players that need the debuff to some degree to kill a boss much later than everyone else. They should basically contempt themselves with doing it when it's no longer relevant for them.

If the fictional case I've written before is not fair for you, doesn't that mean that what you're asking for is just as unfair? Think about it. Because both of them aim to the same: rewarding time and effort (just taken to the absolute extreme). And once you start arguing that *this time and effort* is okay, but this one is not, you're not being objective in your reasoning.

So, why do you want to force others to accept something you wouldn't in the first place? That is what you're asking for when you come up with this kind of arguments about why noone else should do something after you did it.

Please for the sake of sanity of everyone who is trying to get a point across here have some understanding of what we are trying to say. The tone of the posts given is very patronizing as if we were wrong to have an opinion that differs from what seems to be the 'design orientation' at the moment, or your personal opinion.
I understand what is being said, and that's why I'm asking those questions. When some posters say that it's not fair that someone comes in with the 30% debuff and kills Heroic Madness with less time and effort, they're failing to acknowledge that some of those guilds might actually have been raiding since the patch was released (which is hardly less time and effort).

That's the kind of thing to which I want to see an objective argument as to why it's terrible that someone that is been pursuing that objective for more than half a year at this point, shouldn't get those same rewards. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Beta More Helpful Than Harmful
You do bring up some good points Theremin. It cannot be denied that there are a lot of spoilers being leaked into the community during a beta, and I can totally understand why that is very frustrating for those who prefer the new content to remain a secret until release, so that the experience of something new and the thrill of discovery is fully preserved. I am sure you are right that some people who do play the beta will not be as excited as they otherwise could have been upon release.

That being said, the benefits of the beta far outweigh the drawbacks, and here is why:

An internal test can never be a proper substitute for a beta, simply because of the fact that a beta resembles the live environment much more accurately.

In a beta, there are always players who play the game in ways that were never imagined by the developers, and there are always players who are so creative or so skilled that they can approach or defeat content in ways that were never expected. There is an incredibly huge variation in play styles amongst the beta players, and just by playing(or trying to play), they unearth many glitches and bugs that would never have been found by the dedicated team of internal testers tasked with hunting for glitches and bugs.

Having a huge pool of players in the beta will also help the developers determine if the new content they are working on actually works as intended or not, if the new content is fun or not.

Also, betas are much better at testing both hardware and connections, which helps immensely in the preparations for the launch and the live environment.

What I am trying to say is that having a beta test before release is a better way to ensure a high standard of quality.

Really, you need to test hardware and connections for 4th expansion? Yeah right.
Very much so. Our hardware systems and architecture has changed significantly over the years with every expansion, and this one is no different... a lot of things are going on behind the scenes my friend. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

FEEDBACK: Scarlet Monastery (Challenge)
The Challenge mode for this dungeon is unlocked for this beta cycle.

A few relevant testing notes:

You must have completed the Heroic version of the dungeon once in order to attempt the challenge mode.

Item level will be normalized to 463.

There is no queue system for challenge modes; groups must be formed manually and you must zone in from the outside world.

The current Gold/Silver/Bronze times are not final.

While the challenge is active, the group leader may Reset the dungeon at any time via a drop-down accessible by right-clicking your unit frame.

You may want to dig up those dusty keybindings for things like crowd control and interrupts.

Enemies in Challenge mode dungeons are 1 level higher than in Heroic versions, as a rule, such that bosses are now level 93.

Please use this thread to share feedback regarding the dungeon, including information on group composition and completion times. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

FEEDBACK: Gate of the Setting Sun (Challenge)
The Challenge mode for this dungeon is unlocked for this beta cycle.

A few relevant testing notes:

You must have completed the Heroic version of the dungeon once in order to attempt the challenge mode.

Item level will be normalized to 463.

There is no queue system for challenge modes; groups must be formed manually and you must zone in from the outside world.

The current Gold/Silver/Bronze times are not final.

While the challenge is active, the group leader may Reset the dungeon at any time via a drop-down accessible by right-clicking your unit frame.

You may want to dig up those dusty keybindings for things like crowd control and interrupts.

Enemies in Challenge mode dungeons are 1 level higher than in Heroic versions, as a rule, such that bosses are now level 93.

Please use this thread to share feedback regarding the dungeon, including information on group composition and completion times. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Warrior (Forums)Warriors and a Barbarians FuryI think there's a certain amount of rage/sec that make warriors feel good, lets call it X. Too much, and the mechanic stops working as a limitation. Too little, and you feel starved and it's no fun. The problem is that X isn't different to a maxed out warrior at the end of the expansion or a beging warrior in greens, but by tying it to gear progression you force either the too much end of the scale on the endexpo warrior or the starved feel on the questing warrior.
I agree with that, but here's the thing: we don't want warriors to scale linearly. What I mean by that is that as you increase gear, you'll be hitting harder and critting more often. Both of those are fun, don't get me wrong, but after you get over the thrill of BIG NUMBERS you start to see behind the curtain a little. Fundamentally, there isn't a huge difference between hitting a bad guy for 3000 or 30,000, especially when the bad guy's health has probably increased by ten as well.

What feels cooler is if you actually feel different with great gear. Instead of just hitting harder, you are hitting different buttons. For warriors, that means having enough rage to use Heroic Strike frequently instead of rarely. But that means we need to start warriors in quest greens at the "rarely" side of the dial, so that when you're in epics in the final tier, you're now at "frequently."

Historically, what has happened is that warriors start at "never" and then grow into "always." Rage scaling with gear was too good. It needs to scale, and a little bit of exponential scaling is ideal, but the end of the curve can't rocket up towards the sun. (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

Weekend Sale -- 25% Off Character Transfer

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

New horizons await! Through this weekend and for a limited time only, you can initiate a Character Transfer to move one of your World of Warcraft characters to a new realm for 25% off the regular price.

To get started, simply click here. Alternatively, you can log in to your Battle.net account at www.battle.net, select your World of Warcraft account, and then click “Character Transfer” at the bottom of the page.

Don’t delay -- this offer ends Monday, July 23 at 11:59 p.m. PDT.

The Daily Blink - Legendaries for Everyone!The Daily Blink grants a long standing request, a legendary for everyone!